TAPE IT EASY
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Copy Cats
You can't record on CDs yet, but you can record from them, with far greater convenience than when transferring from LP. Even the simplest CD player makes it easy to start and stop the unit in sync with the tape deck, and lets you automatically record only the tracks you want from the original disc (or discs, if you have a CD changer). Most players also let you program those tracks in any order you like. Further, if your recorder's counter reads in elapsed or remaining time, you can compare that to the timings on your CD player's display to see if the next cut will fit or1 the remaining tape.
These conveniences were built into the CD system for general use, not just for taping. In the past year or two, however, two features designed specifically as taping aids have beer added to CD players. One is a time addition system that shows you which cuts on the disc will fit onto a tape of given length. The other scans the signal levels on the disc and finds the highest recorded peak. If you then use the peak to set your tape deck's recording level, you'll be safe against signal overload when you transfer from the CD. And one new CD player changes the order of the cuts to make them fit more neatly onto the two sides of a tape.
Limited Monopoly
New, high-tech features which appear on one company's products have always appeared soon thereafter on several other brands.
But if it seems to you that the pace of such copying is speeding up, you're right-and the reason is ICs. In order to keep the cost of specialized new ICs down, the companies which develop them often have to accept only a limited-time exclusivity on new chips, and then must allow their sale to other companies.
This speeds the dissemination of new features and technology, which in one way is good. But it may also slow the development and improvement of that new technology by prematurely freezing designs. The difference between the cost of buying an existing IC and producing an improved version is far greater than the difference between continuing a discrete-component design and improving it.
In the days before ICs, new challenges (such as the onset of stereo FM) would be met by about as many circuit designs as there were companies in the field. Similarly, if one company was first to introduce a new and useful circuit, its competitors promptly would seek new (and better) ways to do the same thing. Only after one or two of those designs proved themselves superior would standardization set in.
Tera's Revenge
Audio equipment has been picking up video-oriented features lately, such as Dolby Surround decoding and combined video/audio signal switching. Now video is striking back: Tera's new 31-inch TV set (ahem ... er ... ah ... "monitor/receiver") boasts not only MTS stereo reception but FM stereo as well, thanks to a built-in frequency-synthesis tuner with six AM and 18 FM presets. (Yeah, I know-grandma's old DuMont had a built-in FM tuner, too, but this is fancier.) The infrared link between the set and its remote controller is bidirectional, so the remote can double as a wireless headphone receiver. The amplifiers are more typical of audio than video systems, too. They deliver 35 watts into each stereo speaker, plus another 35 watts into an optional subwoofer.
Back from the Cutting-Room Floor
A lot of Broadway show tunes have been waiting in the wings as far as recordings are concerned. Many shows had more music in them than an LP could hold, which meant some songs didn't make it into the album.
Most shows' music should fit onto one CD, however. Already, some recordings (such as the CBS albums of Stephen Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle and Leonard Bernstein's On the Town) are being reissued on CD, with songs that were crowded off the LP originals.
On a Blue Note
Billed as a special afternoon to celebrate "the boogie-woogie dream that lasted 50 years." Blue Note Records marked its golden anniversary on January 6, 1989, with a party/jam session at New York City's Birdland that featured performances by many of the label's most well-known musicians. The Blue Note dream began simply enough in 1939, when Alfred Lion brought Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons into a studio to make some private recordings. These sides would set the standard for the label for the next half century. Four months later, the corporation's statement of purpose was published in the label's first brochure. In it, Alfred Lion wrote, "Blue Note records are designed simply to serve the uncompromising expressions of hot jazz or swing, in general. Any particular style of playing which represents an authentic way of musical feeling is genuine expression.... Hot jazz, therefore, is expression and communication, a musical and social manifestation, and Blue Note records are concerned with identifying its impulse, not its sensational and commercial adornments."
Over the years, Lion and his childhood friend/business partner. Francis Wolff, helped to bring about and highlight many of the innovations which would occur in this music format. From the early days with Lewis and Ammons through the swingtet sessions with artists such as Ike Quebec. Jimmy Hamilton, and Benny Morton, and well beyond the be-bop era of Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, and Tadd Dameron, Blue Note encouraged creative freedom in its musicians. The Jazz Messengers were originally formed as a cooperative of Blue Note personnel featuring Horace Silver, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Doug Watkins, and Art Blakey.
Blue Note was sold to Liberty Records in 1966. During the late '60s and '70s, reissue releases were sporadic, although the label did maintain a roster of many fine artists.
In 1985, Blue Note underwent a massive revitalization effort as part of Capitol/EMI. The label now releases between 50 and 75 reissues a year and includes a roster of artists such as Stanley Jordan, Bireli Lagrene, Michel Petrucciani, Lou Rawls, McCoy Tyner, Art Blakey, Dianne Reeves, Gil Melle. Bobby Watson, and a host of others.
In 1987. Blue Note Records--and the jazz world in general--suffered a great loss when founder and guiding spirit, Alfred Lion, died at the age of 78. He, Bruce Lundvall, and Michael Cuscuna were honored at the label's Birdland celebration for their dedication to jazz and their efforts to bring this uniquely American music form to a greater audience. Audio echoes this salute, and wishes all at Blue Note a happy anniversary.
-Karen Clark
(adapted from Audio magazine, Jun. 1989; by IVAN BERGER)
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